Long-Term Fertilization Alters Mycorrhizal Colonization Strategy in the Roots of Agrostis capillaris

Abstract

Long-term fertilization targets mycorrhizal fungi adapted to symbiotic exchange of nutrients, thus restricting their colonization potential and re-orienting the colonization strategies. The MycoPatt tool has a high applicability in quantifying the symbiotic process with the identification of mycorrhizal indices and projection of mycorrhizal patterns. Organic treatments increase the symbiotic process, visible in values of colonization frequency and intensity, with about 6% more than the native status of colonization. At the opposite pole, organic-mineral treatments decrease the colonization parameters by up to half of the organic treatment. All of the colonization parameters show significant correlations, except for the arbuscules/vesicle ratio (0.03). All the applied treatments, except for the organic one, record multiple root segments with a colonization degree lower than 10%. The application of treatments changes the strategy of native colonization from a transfer (40%) and storage (37%) to a predominant storage (50%) for organic treatment, and are mainly proliferative between 38–50% in mixed and mineral treatments. The high amount of mineral components increases also the presence of resistance conditions strategies. The use of mycorrhizal pattern maps, with the inclusion of colonization strategies, presents an important direction in understanding the evolution of mutual relations, and to explore in-depth the efficiency of the whole symbiotic process.